A SURPRISE PICKET

Picketing the Church of Scientology© since May 10, 1997, for Objectionable Management Practises.

Toronto Ontario Canada. June 7, 1997.

On Saturday June 7, 1997 from 2pm to 5pm an Information Picket
was held at the Toronto Org of the Co$ on Yonge St.

The Picket came as a total surprise to the Org.

Picket Report by Gregg Hagglund.

THE PICKET REPORT: Part One:

Saturday started out overcast and rainy, but with a happily accurate forecast for a darkclouded sky but dry afternoon.

I met with D'Artangnan and Artemis at a convenient nearby location at about 1:30. As had been communicated to us by others we would be joined in progress by more participants and at least on observer.

Indeed, Miss U, the observer, stopped by and spent a little time with us. Miss U was reluctant to actively picket, as is her choice, but was going to stand by as moral support and as a witness to any shenanigans by the Co$.
Miss U was accompanied by her faithful companion the 'Duke of Gloucester' a beautiful Black Bouvier.

(As it turned out Miss U and Duke joined in on the Picket, but more on that later.)

From our observation point we were able to see no apparent rallying of the opposition, but true to our own policies we would not start exactly on time.

The Police showed at 1:55 pm, parking a minivan with two Constables at the corner of the side street beside the Org. One constable got out and began to look about for us at 2:05pm. I decided to pay them a visit to let them know when we would start.

I made my way over to the police van and introduced myself to the two officers.
A third policeman, a Sargeant I believe, joined us in impromptu conference.
I shared with them several documents, including the RX Special and the PicketAdvisory that I had copies of for all participants.
They were extremely appreciative that we had written codes of conduct that we wanted participants to adhere to. And they liked the content of both documents as well.

I also showed them our Picket IDs, which were 3' x 3' badges in holders to be worn suspended by a short piece of string from about the neck of the Demonstrators.

The badge said:

S cientology
T yrannical
O perating
P olicies

The STOP was in bright red and the whole badge was outlined in a red border.

We had also prepared and wore Lisa McPherson Memorial  T-Shirts.

Each had a different question on it below a 10 x 10 colour shot of Lisa's smiling face.
Mine said: Why did she die?
The other two asked How and Where did she die? respectively.

The police asked about the Lisa shirts and I briefly filled them in.
One officer seemed to be completely familiar with the case and the circumstances. He invited me to ask him his opinion of the Co$ sometime when he was "not wearing my hat".

I informed the Police we would be starting almost immediately. We exchanged handshakes and I received a chorus of "goodlucks" and then I returned to gather up the troops and equipment.